


stepping out of place

by Anonymous



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drinking, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Hobbits, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28230258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Now, I wonder what Sam Gamgee would have to say if he wasn’t so set on keeping busy,” Frodo said, eyes autumn-sky blue as he gazed at Sam over the top of his mug. Sam took a gulp of tea and scalded his tongue quite badly.“Not much of anything,” he said thickly. “It’s more about, well…”“What?” Frodo asked, leaning forward across the kitchen table like he was genuinely fascinated.It must have been the whiskey in the tea, and the odd hour, and the way when he’d looked outside the Shire had been transformed into something unfamiliar and strange.“It’s more about what I would do,” Sam said.
Relationships: Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

Sam blinked awake slowly. Everything was soft and dark and it would have been easy to fall back to sleep, except that his feet and the tips of his ears were freezing, and there was an awful crick in his neck. The oddness of his surroundings came to him all at once: velvet couch cushions instead of his lumpy bed at Number 3 Bagshot Row, an embroidered pillow pressing patterns into his cheek, the last glowing embers of the fireplace in - 

The Bag End living room. Right. He’d fallen asleep listening to one of Mr. Bilbo’s stories after a long cold day fixing a leak on the roof, and instead of waking him Mr. Bilbo had gone to bed and left him to drowse on the couch. Sam felt clumsy and embarrassed as he stood up and promptly tripped over the ottoman with a  _ huff _ of caught breath. He had only been working at Bag End for a year, and his da would have words about him slipping up like this. 

Mr. Frodo had come in at some point, of course; he’d been at the Green Dragon and rushed in the door with a whirl of cold air and a leftover smile. Yes, it was coming back now - Sam had been planning the spring planting with Bilbo, and then Frodo had persuaded Bilbo to tell them both a story like he’d done when they were young, pressing a tiny glass of amber liquid into Sam’s hand all the while.

Sam had various reasons for avoiding Frodo Baggins, especially when he was off the clock, and one reason was that it was very hard to say no to him. The liquor had tasted like smoke from a late autumn bonfire, and Frodo had refilled it several times, bumping his shoulder like they were  _ friends _ , and the last Sam remembered was realizing that he could close his eyes and still listen to Bilbo’s story.

Sam scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling foolish. If he was lucky he would get home without waking anyone. The embarrassment of falling asleep on his betters’ sofa would have to be dealt with in the morning; he resolved to be in the Bag End garden early, before either Baggins was awake, and to pretend nothing had happened. That would be the best way to smooth over it all. The Bagginses were not proper by any stretch of the imagination, but that didn’t mean Sam had to go and forget his place.

“It snowed,” said a voice from the kitchen, and Sam near leapt out of his skin. “Sorry,” Frodo said with a grin. He was perched on a counter in a dressing gown so dark green it was almost black, sipping a mug of tea. A single candle burned low in the windowsill, rendering the night outside a shiny black.

“Beg pardon, sir,” Sam said, ducking his head. “It’s not like me to fall asleep like that.”

“I believe the fault is mine,” Frodo said ruefully, nodding at a half-full bottle. “Bracegirdle scotch, aged eighteen years in port casks. Merry gave it to me as a gift and I wanted to try it right away.”

Sam felt even more awkward for having gulped down Mr. Frodo’s fancy liquor like it was ale. Frodo had a way of doing that; of making Sam feel like he was too big, too clumsy, and too stupid to occupy the same space as him.

“I’ll just be going now,” he said, his toes curling in anticipation of the bitter cold outside. “Sorry again.”

“Oh, don’t,” Frodo said, and hopped down from the counter, leaving his mug behind. He pressed his face to the cold glass of the window next to the door. “Look, it snowed rather a lot.”

Sam cupped his hands around his eyes and peered out. That it had; snow lay unshoveled across the doorstep, sparkling in the moonlight and making the whole hill unfamiliar. Everything felt quiet and dampened, like a quilt had been pulled across Bagshot Row.

“What time is it, sir?” Sam asked worriedly. “I really must be going.” His gaffer would absolutely have hard words for him in the morning.

“Just gone midnight,” Frodo said. “Oh, Samwise, let us speak frankly.”

Sam turned to look at him properly. Frodo’s eyes were firm, his arms folded, and Sam felt like there was a question hovering in the air that he didn’t quite understand.

“You can stay the night here. That is a normal thing people do in bad weather. You don’t have to be...oh, I don’t know. Frightened.”

“What would I be frightened of, sir?” Sam asked, managing to sound confused rather than panicked. How could Frodo know?

“You look positively terrified whenever you see me, and you didn’t use to,” Frodo said in a rush. “I know people talk about me in town - me and Bilbo and how we’re odd - but I promise you that nothing -”

He turned away quickly, but not before Sam saw a flush rising in his face. Frodo pulled his dressing gown shut where it gapped at his narrow chest and went to the kitchen, reclaiming his mug. “Nothing untoward would ever happen, Samwise,” he said, facing away. “I’m not sure what people say about me but I - I value your friendship.”

Sam felt adrift. Certainly people talked about the Baggins house. How it was stuffed with gold, how foreigners would visit at odd hours of the night, and of course the awful muttered tragedy of Frodo’s parents. “Don’t spend too much time there, Sam-lad,” his da had told Sam, when he took over the garden duties. “They’re good folk, but there’s a queerness to that place and to both o’ them.” 

“I’m sure the gossip is not as bad as you believe,” he said finally, when he realized Frodo was waiting for some kind of response. “Sir. I’m just - well, my gaffer says that I should always have a job in front of me and that otherwise I’d forget my place. So I’ll beg your pardon for being a bit stiff sometimes, when the tasks of the day are done. But if I don’t button my lips I’m liable to say something wrong.”

Frodo turned, regarding him thoughtfully. “That might be the longest speech I’ve ever heard from you, Sam Gamgee.”

“Beg pardon,” Sam said, blushing again, but Frodo clasped his shoulder.

“I wish you wouldn’t worry so much about forgetting your place. You’re the only one in this house who cares about things like that.”

“I cannot argue with you there,” Sam said, startling a laugh from Frodo.

“You can stay in the guest room,” Frodo said. “I think there’s clean sheets on the bed. Would you like some tea?”

Sam felt like he’d been swept along by Frodo’s conversation until he’d washed up on the shore of  _ staying the night at Bag End _ , something he was pretty sure fit squarely into  _ forgetting his place _ . But it was hard to contradict Frodo when his eyes were sparkling like that and his hands moved quick and nervous on the kettle.

“I wouldn’t say no to something hot,” Sam said, thumbing the cold points of his ears. Big smials like this were so hard to keep warm in the winter. 

“I didn’t realize your father had given you a set of rules,” Frodo mused. “Do you know I’ve always been terrified of him?”

“Of my gaffer?”

“I’m sure he doesn’t approve of me.”

“He don’t approve of much,” Sam said, snorting. “But I wouldn’t worry yourself, Mr. Frodo. He has the greatest respect for the Baggins family.”

“Respect is very dull,” Frodo said. “Do you take it with whiskey?”

For some reason this made Sam blush. “If it’s not too much trouble,” he said, and then felt so useless standing there as Frodo made tea that he started tidying the kitchen. Frodo trotted to the pantry as Sam wiped down the scotch glasses and placed them in the nice cupboard.

“You don’t need to do that,” Frodo said, touching Sam’s arm to still him. Sam looked up at him, feeling caught out and embarrassed. Frodo held his gaze for the briefest moment - and then the kettle shrieked and he turned and poured the tea.

“Now, I wonder what Sam Gamgee would have to say if he wasn’t so set on keeping busy,” Frodo said, eyes autumn-sky blue as he gazed at Sam over the top of his mug. Sam took a gulp of tea and scalded his tongue quite badly.

“Not much of anything,” he said thickly. “It’s more about, well…”

“What?” Frodo asked, leaning forward across the kitchen table like he was genuinely  _ fascinated _ . 

It must have been the whiskey in the tea, and the odd hour, and the way when he’d looked outside the Shire had been transformed into something unfamiliar and strange.

“It’s more about what I would  _ do _ ,” Sam said. And - this was a fatal mistake - he let himself look up at Frodo.

Sam firmly believed that you couldn’t stop your thoughts; but you could stop your eyes from wandering, and your lips from speaking them, and your hands from acting them out. And now he’d gone and broken one of the rules he’d set for himself. 

Frodo looked curious, and warm, and there was a  _ reason _ that Sam didn’t let himself be alone with him and a  _ reason _ he was stiff around him and the reason was obvious enough to anyone who cared to notice that his gaffer had felt it necessary to give him that warning in the first place.

“I’m trying to think of anything you could do that would be...wrong,” Frodo said. He stood, pouring himself more tea, and settled back at the table on the bench next to Sam. “And I’m coming up short. You are a hobbit of unimpeachable character.”

Sam did not know what to say to this, and indeed had already said too much. He drank his tea and stared into the liquid depths like it would provide him with a way out of this situation. His heart was thudding rather painfully and he worried Frodo could hear it.

“I’m not as good as you’re making me out to be,” he muttered finally.

“My dear Sam,” said Frodo, and that made his heart go absolutely wild in his chest, “whatever it is, you can tell me. Robbery? You know my uncle is very proud of being a burglar. Murder? I’m sure they deserved it.”

Sam snorted. “Now you’re telling tales.”

“I have not always been...good, myself,” Frodo said lightly. “You can’t shock me, Samwise.” He skimmed his hand across Sam’s, so quickly it could have been a mistake. “Though sometimes I wish you’d try.”

Sam looked up at him then. He couldn’t help it. He felt - what? Angry? Stubborn? He was sure Frodo was teasing him, sure the laughter in his voice was directed at him. But the expression on Frodo’s face changed quick as sunlight on a windy day - nervous and suddenly shy, eyes darting away and lip tucking under his front tooth.

“Sorry,” Frodo said, and laughed a little; tight, bitter. “There I go, putting truth to the gossip.” He stood, tugged his dressing gown and stepped toward the hall, and him moving away felt - there was no other way to put it - wrong.

Sam had gone and said too much. Then he’d gone and looked. And that opened the door to all sorts of other things that didn’t feel quite as impossible as they had before.

“You know your way to the guest room,” Frodo said, “though please, go home if you like -” 

He didn’t say anything else because Sam rushed to his feet and put his arms around him.

Frodo was small, with a tight intake of surprised breath - but before Sam could worry he had slipped his arms around Sam too, and pressed his face into his shoulder. His curls brushing Sam’s nose and his hands touching his back and the smallest patch of cheek touching Sam’s neck - they stayed like that, as still as the snowy night outside, and it felt for one lovely spinning moment like no one else existed in the world.

“Does your heart always beat this loud,” Frodo murmured, after he had taken three breaths, ribs expanding in the circle of Sam’s arms.

“Suppose I’m afraid after all,” Sam said, and Frodo - whose hands were exploring the small of his back in tiny circles - froze. “Not of you, sir,” he added. “Only...I would never want to do something wrong.”

“You couldn’t,” Frodo said. “I have to admit...I’ve been very curious what you would do, if...if you were not afraid.”

He angled his head up, the smallest of movements, and Sam felt his breath on his cheek. Felt the lightest, briefest brush of his mouth.

What he wanted to do was impossible, was something he had told himself many times that he  _ must not do _ ; but somehow, not doing it was even more impossible. So he turned his face to Frodo’s and pressed his lips - not to his mouth, he lost courage at the last moment - to his cheek, the hollow at the side of his mouth. Smelling whiskey and tea and a warm hobbit scent under it all.

It was Frodo who had the courage, after all, to turn and kiss him full. Arms linked around his neck, lips pressing against Sam’s in a way that made his whole body flush. He kissed Sam hungrily, eager and awkward and quick like he was worried Sam would disappear.

Sam did not disappear, although at some point his mind and body seemed to have split, and his body was now doing things without waiting for approval. He lowered his hands, feeling the curve of hip-bone under Frodo’s thick padded dressing gown, and pushed him forward. They stumbled together until Frodo was pressed against the kitchen wall and pulled back from his lips and Sam could think, sort of.

Frodo was breathing fast now, his eyes shining and flickering over Sam’s face. He looked like he was about to say something but Sam was already doing what he’d wanted to do for a very, very long time; fitting his lips to Frodo’s, slow and careful, kissing him thoroughly, trying to press understanding into him with the kiss. There was a rhythm to it, and he had always been good at falling into patterns. 

The way Frodo went all soft and boneless was extraordinary, the way his mouth opened to his tea-scalded tongue. Sam held him up, one hand on the soft fuzz of his jaw and one braced against the wall.

And Frodo  _ pressed _ himself against Sam, shameless, a line of contact tracing from their lips to chests to bellies to -

“Oh,” Sam said, as Frodo’s leg shifted and his thigh pressed, quite purposefully, against his trousers.

“Tell me to stop,” Frodo said dizzily, his hand dancing over Sam’s hair. “And I will, I will - but if I only ever get one chance to do this -”

“Don’t think of it,” Sam said, half-drunk on the sensation. He dropped his head to kiss Frodo’s soft neck where the dressing gown gaped, and Frodo  _ shivered _ like a sapling in the wind. “Don’t stop, please, m’dear.”

Frodo was not wearing a shirt under the dressing gown, and a dusting of dark hair traced a path downwards. Sam kissed it, trying to keep his hands steady on Frodo’s waist as fingers tangled in his hair and pulled him in. He dropped to his knees, almost smothering in the warm clean skin of Frodo’s chest, his ribs, the soft swell of his stomach.

“Hnn,” said Frodo, eloquently, and Sam craned up to look at him. His pupils were huge in the dark room, and his mouth was trembling.

“We shouldn’t be in the kitchen,” he whispered, half laughing and half terrified. Sam, whose mouth was already flooded in anticipation of getting the thing he’d dimly wanted for so long, let Frodo pull him up with reluctance. 

He couldn’t help leaning in to kiss him again, but Frodo broke the kiss and rested his head on Sam’s chest. “Promise you won’t hate me later,” he whispered.

“Hate you?”

“Sometimes…” Frodo seemed to curl up, become smaller. “It’s pleasant, but people hate me later. And I couldn’t bear if you felt like that - I’d rather not do it at all -”

“I could never hate you,” Sam mumbled. “This is, is the opposite.” He felt huge suddenly, heavy with emotion and ready to fight anyone who had ever hated Frodo and readier to make him forget it, however he could.

“Mm,” Frodo said neutrally, and grabbed his hand. “Guest room. It’s farther from Bilbo’s.” Sam, who had completely forgotten someone else was sleeping in Bag End, gulped and let himself be led.

Being horizontal on the neatly made guest bed - had he been the one to tuck in the topsheet so tightly? Sam couldn’t remember - felt much more serious than kissing in the kitchen. Frodo tugged Sam on top of him, slipping hands down his back and freeing his shirt, and Sam held himself up carefully lest he crush Frodo.

“Wait,” he said, when he felt Frodo’s hands fumbling at his trouser button, and sat back. “Slower.” 

Frodo smiled at him, bashful. “Sorry - we don’t have to - I know, this is awful of me - “

“Stop that,” Sam said. “It’s not that I’ve never had a tumble before.”

Frodo raised his eyebrows so high they disappeared into his fringe. “ _ Really _ ?” he asked, tweaking his dressing gown up over his shoulders and sounding deeply interested. “With who - “

“ _ You _ are different,” Sam said firmly, and that made Frodo stop fidgeting. “I have wanted to do this for a very long time, and I won’t be rushed.”

That made Frodo’s eyes go huge, blood flooding his cheeks. “Oh,” he said, in a very small voice, and then didn’t say anything else, which was a small miracle in and of itself.

Sam kissed him deliberately, holding his body still as Frodo twisted beneath him, trying to press up. He eased one hand onto his chest, felt his heart beating wildly, slid it down to the tie of his dressing gown. He was pretending he knew more than he did; had never done this exactly; but it suddenly felt as easy and correct as turning to the next page in a tale.

The line of hair grew into a wiry thatch, a path through an unmapped country, and Sam followed it with his fingertips. Frodo shivered and his hips kept twisting, so Sam took them in his hands to hold him still, which made Frodo whine in a hungry, desperate way. “Hush now,” Sam said, and Frodo turned his face into a pillow.

He lowered his head between Frodo’s legs, and ran his tongue over his lips, and before he let himself be afraid he bent and tasted him. 

Frodo was small; Sam could fit his mouth completely around him, hardly knowing what he was doing but just wanting to  _ feel _ him like that. Smooth and swollen as the first peach of summer, almost leaping into his mouth. Frodo arced upwards, and Sam ran his hands over the rounded plane of his stomach. He took one of his legs and draped it over his shoulder, and Frodo keened into the pillow in a way that showed he had completely forgotten they were supposed to be quiet. 

Sam was always good at finding patterns, and there was something thrilling about making Frodo - who was always so fast, so nervous - to move in a slow and steady rhythm with him. His hips bucked up eagerly and Sam held him firm with one hand, feeling his callouses scraping over skin almost luminous in the dark. 

He fisted his other hand down his own trousers, barely thinking of it but just needing relief, needing to match the rhythm for himself. Frodo felt perfect like that; pushing against his lips, thicker now, his heartbeat pounding in Sam’s mouth.

Frodo was panting now, and not trying to muffle himself at all but turned into the pillow as if for comfort. One hand groped for Sam and twisted into his curls, and somehow that - the greedy tug of it pulling him down, fully onto Frodo - was too much for him. He spilled into his hand, a wet hot throb that took him by surprise, and he moaned into his full mouth. 

Every part of Frodo’s body went rigid, then, and his mouth opened in a dark, wordless  _ O  _ and even in the dark Sam could see the flush that bloomed across his chest. A moment later came the crash, air gasping out of his lungs with a sound sweeter than a song.

Sam held him steady, held him through it. It was a new taste, a new feeling, all so good and so impossible that it might have been a dream except that Frodo curled a hand in his shirt and pulled him close like he was drowning, and a dream wouldn’t do that. 

He stared, nose-to-nose with Sam and breathing heavily, almost gasping, before getting out, “You wanted to do  _ that _ , precisely, for a very long time?”

“That and all of this,” Sam said, and kissed him, and pulled him close. “So much that I’m not even sure what I want, half the time, but that I want it from you.”

“Oh, my,” Frodo said, twisting close to him so his dressing gown slithered fully off in a satiny rustle. “I suppose I didn’t think - my friends gossip too, you know, and I’ve never heard that Samwise Gamgee went for lads. And...you might say that I was extra interested in that subject.”

“Never had a preference one way or t’other,” Sam said. “But it’s only been you that I, I couldn’t get out of my mind. So to speak.” He felt a bit embarrassed, since it seemed there was an entire world Frodo knew about and he did not. “If I did wrong - “

“You did right,” Frodo said, kissing him on the cheeks and nose and eyelids. “Come here, sweet hobbit.”

His hand dove south in a practiced way that told Sam he had done this before, and Sam flinched away because he was still sensitive. “Oh,” Frodo said, palm flattening on the rapidly cooling wetness of his trousers, sounding amused and - disappointed? “You didn’t even wait for me?”

“Wasn’t thinking clear,” Sam muttered, embarrassed. “But you’re too fine to be touching the likes of me.” That wasn’t what he meant exactly, only that he wanted to make Frodo feel good, wanted to take care of him, and the idea of that being returned was - well, not something he’d let himself think of, ever.

“Ah,” Frodo said, a little sadly. He pulled back to look at Sam. It was very dark in the guest room - the candle had gone out at some point - and all Sam could see of his face was a blur of pale cheeks and dark eyes and curls. “You know, I...wish you wouldn’t feel that way about me.”

Sam felt clumsy. “It’s just - if you’ve been with many others, I’m sure they are better suited -”

Frodo laughed. “I would not describe my exploits as  _ many _ , Samwise,” he said. “But when it comes to you…”

He traced Sam’s face with a cold fingertip, thinking. “You matter a lot to me,” he said at last, simply. “And I don’t do a thing like this casually. Not with anyone, truth be told, but especially not with you.”

“Oh,” Sam said, and struggled to say anything else.

“But if we only ever do this the once,” Frodo said, “I’m still glad. And I won’t treat you any differently, and I hope you won’t either, unless maybe you worry a bit less about stepping out of place.”

“Does it have to be just the once?” Sam blurted out, and blushed. “That is to say, I know we are going about this all backwards, which according to my da is just my way of doing things, but I would like to - to court you proper. If you would have me.”

Frodo flashed a grin and ducked to hide his face in Sam’s chest, nuzzling close, the tip of his nose icy. “It’s late and you are drunk,” he said, laughter in his voice.

“I’m not,” Sam protested. His head felt, in fact, clearer than it had for quite a long time. “Frodo. Has no-one ever asked to court you before?”

“It isn’t done,” Frodo said, muffled in his chest.

“And when has a Baggins ever worried about what is or isn’t done?” Sam asked, startling a laugh from him. 

“The answer is yes, of course,” Frodo said. “Yes, I would have you. Yes, that would make me very happy. Yes, I don’t care how it will look. But -” and he twisted away to look at Sam in the eyes. “Ask me again in the morning.”

“I can do that,” Sam said.

“And again the next day, and the next. I'm not very clever, you see, and I think I’ll need to be reminded very often.”

“All that book reading,” Sam said, shaking his head. “You’ve got no common sense.”

“Yes, it’s really awful,” Frodo said, and the smile on his face shone like the moon. “My dear Sam, would you like to come back to my room? There’s a reason this is the guest bed, which is that it manages to be too hard and too soft all at once, and I’m getting cold and sleepy and I would like to fall asleep next to you.”

In the morning Sam would ask him again. In the morning there would be more things to think of, figuring out what to tell Bilbo when he caught Sam sneaking out of Frodo’s room, what to tell his gaffer when he asked where Sam had been all night. Jobs to attend to, just like the walkway would need to be shoveled and the icicles knocked down from the eaves. 

But this was not a job; this was something else. Curled in Frodo’s wide bed with his arms around him, laughing when their icy feet bumped, trying to match his breathing - the two of them made a patch of warmth in the cold night and it seemed impossible that it hadn’t always been that way. Impossible that from now on, it wouldn’t always be that way. 

Sam knew about seeds. The first green shoots were so fragile, and almost anything could kill them. But he knew how to tend them, too; and he knew how quickly they grew, how they put down roots and blossomed and how the sun that might have killed them when they were young became something nurturing instead. 

He held Frodo, and he thought about seeds, and he slept.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a bit more explicit / keeping the language vague because idk what hobbit have going on, anatomy-wise

“Like this,” Frodo said, and traced his fingers down Sam’s back. Sam buried his face in the pillow, too shy to watch. Used to his own hand or else taking the lead, it was - difficult - for him to accept being touched. To relax. Every part of him wanted to turn and take Frodo in hand. 

But Frodo was insistent, impossible to refuse, straddling Sam with one hand placed between his shoulder blades holding him down and the other…

He’d been working in the garden, breaking the frozen earth in preparation for spring planting. Cold work, and hard, fingers numbing to stumps inside his wool mittens. It was perfectly normal, then, to accept Frodo’s invitation to tea made not ten minutes after Bilbo left the smial for Michel Delving.

Tea had never materialized; but Frodo _had_ kissed him 'til he was dizzy, pressed in the doorway. Like that - nose to nose, heart thudding, afraid to ask but dying to know - Sam blurted out the question that had burned in his thoughts for a week: “What is it you do with other lads?” 

And Frodo had gotten a gleam in his eye that was positively _wicked_ , and -

Sam sucked in a surprised, shaky breath. Frodo’s fingers were cold, and slippery with oil from a little bottle on the bedside table, and his stomach dropped with something akin to embarrassment as he felt Frodo _inside_ him.

“How’s that,” Frodo murmured, holding still.

“Hnn,” Sam said. “Good. You can - can do more.” He throbbed as Frodo slid in a second finger, feeling wide and exposed. There was shame, but it was hard to separate from the desire. He pressed his face against one arm and shoved the other downwards so that he had something to rub against. 

“Good lad,” Frodo said, bending down so his lips tickled Sam’s ear. “My Sam.” He was moving in and out now, very slow and careful, and Sam couldn’t help but push up against him. Frodo raked one hand through his curls - lord, how he loved that - blunt nails scraping lines down his back. Sam felt himself tightening everywhere, swelling against his palm but too distracted by the new sensation to even come close to release.

He huffed out breath, biting into his arm. “Don’t be quiet,” Frodo said, something feverish thrumming in his voice. “Why -” He thrust in, “Would you -” And in, “Be quiet?”

So even though Sam had never felt this way without the added need for silence, he let the next sound come louder, and surprised even himself. The moan dragged as Frodo pulled back from him, pulled out.

“Wait,” Sam said. “I liked that -”

“I want to see you,” Frodo said, and tugged at his arm. Sam flopped over on the bed, limbs thick and heavy, and gasped at the sudden, aching feeling of absence. A space in him where there’d never been space before.

The color was running high in Frodo’s cheeks, and his eyes were shining. “Like this?” Sam breathed, hardly able to look at him. He felt huge and clumsy and completely scoured by Frodo’s gaze. Tumbles he’d had, snuck after parties or nights out drinking, pressed against walls or laying in the itchy hay of stables; but he had never, ever been naked as the day he was born and spread out in someone else’s bed. 

It was terrifying. And there was no-where else he’d rather be.

“Like this,” Frodo said, and eased his hand between Sam’s legs again. 

It felt different that way; he hit a different part of Sam’s insides when he tilted forward, fingers crooked in just the right way. Sam held one arm over his eyes at first, shy, but Frodo half-fell on top of him and pushed his arm back and kissed him. It was sloppy, and wet, and he pushed himself up against Frodo, desperate for contact. 

“Like this, like this,” Frodo whispered against Sam’s lips, and Sam gasped and reached for him. If he could only press himself to Frodo’s bare stomach, or the line of his trousered thigh, he would be able to -

But Frodo pulled back with one last teasing kiss on Sam’s mouth, all while he was _inside_ him, tilting in and out in a quickening rhythm. He leaned back, and Sam growled with tight, wound-up desire -

And Frodo bent and fitted his mouth to the crook of Sam’s legs.

The sight of him there - Frodo’s fine mouth, bow lips fit for songs and poems and laughter, put to such a use - it was so much _not_ something he should be allowed to see. But he didn’t look away, at first, savored the sight and savored the delicious feeling of how this was _not supposed to be happening_. 

But then Frodo did - _something_ \- with his tongue, burning hot on that cold afternoon, and Sam’s eyes and brain simply stopped working.

It felt like his body - like the whole world - had shrunk down to those points of contact. Sam shuddered and curled his toes into the bedsheet and bit down on his fist, not to be quiet but just because having something in his mouth traced a line from Frodo’s lips to his.

Frodo moved in him again and again, the pace increasing as his tongue traced circles in time. But Sam was used to friction, to thrusting against a hard pillow or a leg or into his calloused hand. This was maddening, this was like trying to split a log with a feather, and he had time for a single flash of worry - _this will not work and he will be disappointed_ \- when the bottom of his stomach turned to hot liquid and suddenly Frodo’s fingers were moving at _exactly_ the right speed and his mouth was _perfectly_ placed. 

The flush bloomed with the next thrust. He was soft spring earth and Frodo was the first planting. 

The next brought him to the edge. He was a stopped-up river and Frodo was a crack in the dam. 

The next destroyed him. 

He came to pieces in Frodo’s bed, flinging his face into the pillow as startled-bird cries fled his lungs, pushed out one by one until there was no more sound or breath left in him.

Eventually he remembered where he was. At some point Frodo had climbed up the bed and fitted himself next to Sam. 

“I,” Sam said, opening his eyes with difficulty, and saw Frodo gazing at him with shining eyes and a smile like he had discovered the most perfect treasure. “That was loud,” he said eventually, which was not what he meant to say. 

“Yes, you were,” Frodo said, and kissed on Sam’s nose. 

“Glory,” Sam said, which was closer to what he meant. “You’re magnificent.” 

Frodo laughed and butted his head into Sam’s neck. “There are other things,” he said. “That lads can do together.”

“I never knew any of it,” Sam said, honestly. A whole world Frodo lived in that he was just finding out about. “Did you learn that all from books?”

Frodo jerked up and stared at him for a moment, and then burst into laughter. “If my uncle has books like that, they are _not_ in the general library,” he said finally. 

Sam blushed and pulled Frodo fully on top of him. “Come here,” he said, gruff and wanting to prove that he knew a few things, too. 

But Frodo froze against him, and a moment later Sam realized why; the door rattled, and Bilbo Baggins called “Frodo?” into the quiet house. 

“Where’s that deed got to, lad? Made it halfway to Michel Delving before I realized I didn’t have it in my dratted pocket -”

His voice was getting closer and Frodo near levitated off the bed, eyes round with worry. Sam was already scrambling into his trousers. “I don’t _know_ , Bilbo,” Frodo called, somewhat frantically. “Did you check the mantle?”

“Not there,” Bilbo said, muffled through the wall. Sam fumbled with his buttons, getting them half wrong but too hurried to fix them.

The thing was that Bilbo did not know about them, yet. Though Sam very much wanted to be proper about it all, he had been nervous too, feeling like it would be out of place and odd to ask for formal permission to court Frodo. And Frodo had been elusive on the subject, and what with all the kissing they’d had very little time to discuss matters - 

“Where’s young Samwise? If he’s gone home with the job half finished - ”

Frodo sank his head into his hands. “Oh, my god,” he said, very quietly, and then slightly louder: “Window.”

“Window?” whispered Sam.

“Go out the window!” 

Sam looked doubtfully at the bedroom window, but Frodo gestured wildly and so he clambered out, knocking over several books and cups and landing face-first in the hedge. The early March air cut through his gapping shirt.

Frodo leaned after him, mischief tugging his mouth into a grin. “You forgot this.” He dumped Sam’s work coat into his arms.

“ _Fro-do_ , come help me search,” Bilbo called querulously from inside. Frodo turned to respond, but Sam caught his shirt collar in one hand - bold, too bold, but he was still spinning from all they’d done - and pulled him in for a kiss. 

“I don’t like to sneak about,” he said when he was done and Frodo was gazing at him with a flushed, half-dazed expression. “It’s not my way.”

Frodo blinked, and focused, and nodded slowly. “Let me think of the right way to tell him,” he said finally. “Promise, my dear.”

Then he winked and spun into the hall with a patter of bare feet on flagstones, leaving Sam standing on the hard ground with his heart banging in his chest and the certainty that Frodo Baggins would, one day or another, absolutely destroy him.


End file.
